Will you, won’t you, won’t you join the dance?

“Hmmm?” The ancient man mused, half distracted by the plant he was drawing.

“What happened?”

“To what sweetheart?”

“The flowers, we were just here yesterday, but now they’re all gone.”

The sad tone alerted the man to her duress. He looked up and noticed she was looking at the patch of daisies. Many of them had lost their petals in the storm that had passed in the night. All that was left of many of them were their yellow centers.

“Well you see sweetheart, the meadow folk needed the petals.”

That got her attention. She tore her eyes from the flower bed and squinted at him. Accessing. That was one of the many things he loved about her. She always carefully thought through what was being said. Finally she crossed to him and plopped herself in his lap. Joining him in studying the plant.

“What meadow folk?”

“Well, the creatures that live in the meadow over this hill of course. Some people have mistaken them for fairies, since they are so similar in stature, but they are a bit different. Anyway, in the summer time these meadow folk host all kinds of dances and the girls use the petals to make themselves little dresses. I’d recon that in a few nights time, once the storms have passed and the moon is new, the meadow will be alive with them. However, if you try to sneak up on them they run away. Painfully shy creatures. Sometimes we can sneak a glimpse though, if we look from the attic.”

“How will we see them grandpa?

“Well we wont see them, not really. However we’ll be able to tell where they are. When they grab the hand of their partner to dance, their hands light up. The dances are quite fast though so the lights go on and off quite quickly. So it’s sometimes difficult to see them from so far off.”

“Can we try grandpa?”

“Well of course sweetheart.”

“Papu?”

“Yes?”

“If we can’t see them, why do they take the flowers for dresses?”

“It’s not for us to see, sweetheart, but they can see them. We should feel lucky they took our flower petals. That means they think are our the best.”

“Really?”

“Can’t see why else they’d take them, can you?”

She mulled that over for a few moments. After awhile she agreed that it made sense. She was growing restless from sitting out in the garden so long, he could tell. She finally squirmed her way back to standing and he figured it was only a matter of time. He gingerly got himself to his feet and dusted off his pants.”

“Papu?”

“Yes?”

“Do you think we could dance for a little while?”

“I think that would be lovely. Should we ask Nana and Jack to join us?”

“Yes please!”

She grabbed his hand and pulled him inside to tell the others the news.